


Autumn Echoes

by soups



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soups/pseuds/soups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Konoha doesn’t think a lot about birthdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Konoha!

Konoha Akinori never thought a lot about birthdays. He didn't hate them but he didn't particularly like them either. Well, a "birthday" itself wasn't really an “achievement” in the first place, more like something that everyone in this world had had to go through, so he didn't really get why birthdays were celebrated. He might be thinking of all that but at the same time, Konoha didn’t really have anything against them either, plus he liked all the celebratory food, so all was well.

In his first grade of high school, Konoha's birthday was on a Sunday. He never talked a lot about himself though probably one or two people in his class knew about it, maybe including Komi who was also in the same club, but anyway, no one brought it up. No one emailed him aside from a few middle school friends and his aunt in Aomori, who also sent him some apples and a pair of flip flops, for some reason. His parents greeted him at breakfast and his sister bought him cake for dinner (strawberry one; she knew he wasn't fond of overly sweet stuff so of course she had to buy him that, something that Konoha would avenge later by changing her boyfriend's contact name in her phone to "Mother"), but other than that, he spent the day doing his weekend routine as usual. Komi remembered about it a month and some weeks later and greeted him "happy 16th birthday plus one month”, to which Konoha wasn’t sure what to reply with (he ended up saying "thanks" while scratching his head).

Second grade, maybe a few more people in the club knew about it, but for some unknown reason it just sort of passed without anyone noticing. Oh, who was he kidding, he knew exactly what the reason was. Bokuto, their team's ace and rumored-to-be-captain, had his birthday around a week before his. The whole volleyball club, coach and managers included, was preparing for a surprise party so huge that when it'd passed, it was like everyone forgot that other birthdays existed. Konoha was included in "everyone" so he was actually really surprised when a girl in his class greeted him on the day (had he ever told her about it?), leading to the rest of the class greeting him as well.

Third year, like the year before, everyone had their hands full preparing Bokuto's birthday party. Konoha came home with a shirt full of Bokuto’s tears and snot so he guessed it was a success, though he refused to wear that shirt before it went through the washing machine at least three times. The day after, he saw the calendar and thought, ah, right his birthday was coming. He thought no one else knew or would simply forget about it, and that it was going to be like his birthdays the past couple of years. That was why there was a little surprise attached to his reply when Bokuto asked, "Heey Konoha, next week's your birthday right?"

"Huh? Ah, yeah, I guess."

"Let's go eat out after practice then!" he chirped. "Sakamoto's as usual?"

"Nah, celebrating birthdays isn't really my thing."

"But you celebrated my birthday!" Bokuto tried to reason. Konoha shrugged.

"Celebrating  _my_  birthday isn't really my thing, then."

The slightly-older looked unsatisfied, but practice was starting, and Konoha disappeared to pair up with Akaashi for warm up.

The talk never came up again for the rest of the week, so Konoha didn't expect what was waiting for him after practice Tuesday the week after.

No, it wasn't that he didn't expect it, more like he had hoped it wouldn't happen. He'd known Bokuto for a while now, he knew that no matter how moody the captain was, once he was fixated on something, he would hold on it and never let it go.

So when a chocolate cake topped with a "Happy Birthday, Motoha!" appeared as the first thing he saw when he got into the clubhouse, Konoha was surprised when he really shouldn't have been.

"...Why would you let Bokuto write on the cake," was the first thing he said, though. "Bokuto, we literally have the same first letter, if you want to mess up, please mess up the second letter." He slightly tilted his head and stared at the horned owl. “I don’t know if I should be worried, mad, or amazed.”

"Sorry, he and I were the ones who was sent to buy the cake, and he insisted to the patisserie to write the message himself," Washio apologized, and Bokuto placed a hand on Konoha’s shoulder.

"Aww c'mon, you know, it's the thought that counts!"

“The thoughts didn’t reach me though, it went to Motoha instead,” Konoha said, smirking, and added before Bokuto protested, “But really, thank you, guys, you really didn’t have to.”

“Nah, we did it ‘coz we want to,” Komi grinned. “Besides, we get to eat cake.”

“Eating cake doesn’t make you taller, you know.”

“Ohhh you said it, now I won’t let you have a slice.”

“But it’s my cake…”

Candles were blown, wishes were prayed, cake was sliced, and mundane attempts to stop Bokuto and Komi from tickling the birthday boy were tried. As soon as he got the chance to turn the table, Konoha began chasing them around the clubhouse, and it took a Sarukui accidentally bumping into Komi and an Akaashi “accidentally” stepping on Bokuto’s foot to stop the game of tag and for Konoha to have his revenge.

After laughing for what seemed like ten minutes and forever, the blonde slipped out of the group and sat down at the corner while his teammates were either playing riddles or trying to make Onaga spit out the name of his crush, he really didn’t know. He looked at the untouched slice of cake in the table, the one with “Motoha” written on it. This wasn’t really different from their daily life, yet something felt different. He was just starting to wonder what it was when Akaashi, apparently had given up in trying to save his junior from their vampire seniors, put himself to sit beside Konoha.

“He spit it out yet?” the older asked. Akaashi shook his head, a bitter smile hanging on his lips.

“It’s a matter of time though,” he sighed, and Konoha laughed. Before a silence managed to kick in, Akaashi turned his head to the wing spiker and said, “We all said it earlier but I haven’t said it to you personally." Konoha looked at him curiously. “Happy birthday, Konoha-san.”

Ah, that was right, it was his birthday. Actually he’d considered that as a reason why that day felt slightly different than usual, but he never felt like this the previous 17 years of his life so he'd thought that wasn't it, but when Akaashi brought it up, he realized.

Konoha looked at the bunch at the other side of the room and grinned. Birthdays might not be that special, but having one celebrated with everyone once in a while didn’t feel so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Bokuto writes 本葉 instead of 木葉 on Konoha's cake. Bokuto's name itself is written 木兎 in Japanese, thus them sharing the same first letter (木).
> 
> \- I have no idea if Konoha has a sibling or not, but I’d like to think that he has an older sister whom he’s in good terms with but they like to piss each other off anyway just because they’re siblings and they can.


End file.
